Court of Criminal Appeals
Navarro v. State
No. PD-0222-22 11/6/25
Issue:
Can a defendant use the necessity defense to justify an assault on an arresting officer because he believes his life is in danger from the officer while resisting arrest?
Holding:
No. “[I]f the defendant would not be justified in using force to resist arrest under the self-defense statute to protect himself from the officer’s use of force, he would also not be justified in using such force under the necessity statute.” The Court overruled its previous holding in Bowen v. State, 162 S.W.3d 226 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Read opinion.
Concurrence (Yeary, J., joined by Schenck, P.J.):
The concurrence agreed with the majority that Bowen “misconstrued Section 9.22 of the Texas Penal Code” and therefore, the Court should not feel compelled to follow it. Read concurrence.
Dissent (Walker, J., joined by Newell and McClure, JJ.):
“We granted review in this case to determine whether [the appellant] was entitled to a necessity instruction even though he may have ‘provoked the difficulty.’ … Rather than focus on that question, the Court goes out of its way to overrule Bowen. … Neither party asked us to revisit Bowen, and Bowen played no role in the court of appeals’s decision below. I would answer the question we granted review on and leave any discussion of Bowen for another day.” Read dissent.
Commentary:
Under Bowen, courts could look only to the necessity statute when deciding whether a legislative purpose existed to exclude the necessity defense, per the third element of that defense (Penal Code §9.22(3)). That is, courts could not consider whether exclusions in any other justification statute, such as the resisting-arrest exclusion in the self-defense statute, could also apply to the necessity defense. By explicitly overruling Bowen as being “flawed from the outset” because it failed to conduct a proper statutory construction analysis, the CCA now holds that the text of the necessity statute may be interpreted in conjunction with other justification statutes in Chapter 9 of the Penal Code, including self-defense.
The direct practical effect of this decision is that the resisting-arrest exclusion of the self-defense statute now can apply to a defendant’s claim of necessity, and it can bar a jury instruction on the defense of necessity if the evidence demonstrates that the defendant was not justified in using force to resist arrest to protect himself from an officer’s use of excessive force if the defendant resisted before the officer began using force. Additionally, with Bowen removed, other exclusions from the self-defense statute, and potentially other justification defenses, as well, can also now be applied to the necessity defense. This is a great win for the State and will help prosecutors achieve justice for law enforcement officers who are injured when suspects unlawfully resist arrest.
Texas Courts of Appeals
Rodriguez v. State
No. 14-24-00464-CR 11/4/25
Issue:
Did the trial judge improperly allow evidence of the defendant’s pornography searches from his phone in his trial for indecency with a child by contact?
Holding:
No. The evidence was “highly relevant” and the defendant did not meet his burden under Rules of Evidence 403 and 404(b) to show that the evidence’s probative value was outweighed by its potential prejudicial value. The defendant’s search history, which included father-daughter and incest pornography “was relevant to a material, non-propensity issue—[the defendant’s] intent to arouse or gratify his sexual desire with his daughter.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
If you prosecute these types of cases, this sort of evidence and these sorts of objections are going to be very common. While this case does not break any new legal ground and stays consistent with how several other appellate courts have addressed these claims, it should provide another helpful, soundly reasoned weapon in your arsenal for when you encounter these issues both at trial and on appeal.
Alvarez v. State
No. 13-24-00347-CR 10/30/25
Issue:
May a trial court conduct a bifurcated proceeding when a defendant enters guilty pleas to some counts and not guilty pleas to others in the same indictment?
Holding:
Yes. The defendant drove his vehicle into a crowd of people, killing eight and injuring 10 others. The State charged him with intoxication manslaughter and manslaughter for each death and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the 10 people injured. At the start of trial, the defendant pleaded guilty to each manslaughter count and aggravated assault but not guilty to each intoxication manslaughter count. The judge permitted the State to proceed on the intoxication manslaughter count and conducted a bifurcated proceeding. The defendant argued that double jeopardy bars convictions for both intoxication manslaughter and manslaughter, and the judge therefore erred by failing to proceed to a unitary trial on his guilty pleas to the manslaughter counts. On appeal, the Court held that the defendant’s double jeopardy rights were not violated, because the trial court dismissed all eight of the manslaughter counts and entered judgment only on the intoxication manslaughter and aggravated assault counts. “A multiple-punishment violation occurs ‘upon the entry of judgment,’ not before.” When a trial court “is confronted with a unique situation of different pleas to multiple counts in the same indictment … the trial court’s decision to conduct a bifurcated proceeding as opposed to a unitary proceeding is harmless error, if at all.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
Although you aren’t likely to see the circumstances of this case all too often, this opinion provides a good refresher on double-jeopardy jurisprudence generally, as well as the particular aspect that the Double Jeopardy Clause prevents the imposition of only multiple punishments for the same offense. That means that the defendant can face trial for multiple counts or charges that will be considered the same offense for double-jeopardy purposes, so long as only one punishment for each duplicate charge is imposed, like occurred here, once the State moved to dismiss the overlapping manslaughter charges.
Additionally, if you face a similar situation to what occurred here—where a defendant attempted to weaponize his guilty pleas to only some charges, while also pleading not guilty to other offenses, in effort to force a unitary proceeding and prevent the State from prosecuting the charges that the defendant pled guilty to—notify your trial judge about this opinion so that you can assure him or her that it will not be reversible error (and probably not error at all) to proceed with a bifurcated trial as to all counts or charges, and sort out any overlap concerning charges that will be deemed the same offense for double-jeopardy purposes at the end of the guilt phase, to prevent the imposition of multiple punishments.
Attorney General Opinion
No. KP-0502 10/30/2025
Issue:
Do juvenile criminal case records constitute permanent records under Chapter 58 of the Family Code?
Conclusion:
The Government Code and the Local Government Records Act assign complimentary roles for local governments and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (“TSLAC”) regarding local government records. The Juvenile Justice Code authorizes specific individuals and entities to destroy certain categories of juvenile records, and a county clerk or district clerk may destroy juvenile case papers pursuant to a local government’s records control schedule that complies with TSLAC’s records retention schedule. Read opinion.
Requested by:
Gloria Meraz, TSLAC Director and Librarian
Notice of Annual Business Meeting
The Annual Business Meeting of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association will take place on December 3, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Riverwalk, 123 Losoya Street, San Antonio, TX 78205. For more details, click here.